Manitoba Hansard — Sitting 35 (27th Legislature, 5th Session)

27-5-35

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2: 30 o'clock, Thursday, March lOth, 1966 Opening Prayer by Madam Speaker. MADAM SPEAKER: Presenting Petitions Reading and Receiving Petitions Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees Notices of Motion Introduction of Bills 807 HON. OBIE BAIZLEY (Minister of Labour)(Osborne) introduced Bill No. 62,

An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act. MADAM SPEAKER presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MADAM SPEAKER: Committee of the Whole House. The Honourable the Minister of Welfare. HON. ,J. B. CARROLL (Minister of Welfare)(The Pas): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Agriculture, that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider the following proposed resolu tion standing: in my name.

MADAM SPEAKER presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried and the House resolved itself into Committee of the Whole with the Honourable Member for Winnipeg: Centre in the Chair. COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE MR . CARROLL: His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor having been informed of the sub ject matter of the proposed resolution recommends it to the House. MR .

CHAIRMAN: The Resolution before the Committee is as follows: Resolved that it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing .Act by providing that grants payable under the Act may be made in a lump sum or by annual instal ments. MR . CARROLL: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is to enable us to either pay out as we have been in the past lump sum payments to our various sponsors of Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing or alternatively to take advantage of the loans under The National Housing Act and finance part of our contribution in that way. MR .

CHAIRMAN: Resolution passed. Committee rise. Call in the Speaker. Madam Speaker the Committee has adopted a certain resolution and ask leave to. sit again. MR . JAMES COW AN, Q. C. (Winnipeg Centre): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Pembina, that the report of the Committee be received. MADAM SPEAKER presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR . CARROLL introduced Bill No. 35

An Act to Amend the Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act. MADAM SPEAKER: Before the Orders of the Day, I would like to attract your attention to the gallery where there are some 69 Grade 11 students from Garden City School under the direction of their teacher, Mr. Groff. This school is situated in the constituency of the Hon ourable the Member for Seven Oaks. On behalf of all members of this Legislative Assembly, I welcome you. MADAM SPEAKER: Orders of the Day. MR . GILDAS MOLGAT (Leader of the OppoSition)(Ste.

Rose): Madam Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I'd like to address a question to the First Minister in his capacity as Provincial Treasurer. Could he advise the House when we may be having the Budget? HON. DUFF ROBLIN (Premier and Provincial Treasurer)(Wolseley): ...... my honourable friend he must be a mind reader because as I was coming down the corridor today I said I really must give that date and unless something that I cannot foresee at the moment happens, I expect to give it. on Friday, March 18th. MR. T. P. HILLHOUSE, Q.

C. (Selkirk): Madam, I'd like to address a question to the Honourable the Provincial Secretary. It arises out of. an advertisement .inserted in last night's Tribune, Page 36, by the Manitoba Civil Service Commission asking for applications for the position of Storekeeper-Mechanic at The Pas and at Brandon - one for each. "The qualifications:

808 March 10, 1966 (MR. HILLHOUSE cont'd) .. ...... applicants must have had training in this particular field. Preference will be given to those with expensive experience. " My question, Madam, is this: Is it now the policy of the Civil Service Commission of Manitoba · to employ those persons who possess the same characteristics as their employer? MADAM SPEAKER: Orders ... .. MR. LEONARD BARKMAN (CarHlon): Madam Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are proceeded with I'd like to direct a question to the Honourable Minister of Public Utilities.

I understand a small delegation was in to see him yesterday concerning the free dialing situa tion between Steinbach and district and the Village of Grunthal. Has this now been granted and if so, could you tell us when this will take place? HON. MAITLAND B. STEINKOPF, Q. C. (Mini ster of Public Utilities) (River Heights): Madam Speaker, I don't think there was a delegation in to see me yesterday. I can't think of one, anyway.

Things are getting a little hectic in the department but the matter is under ad visement and a decision will be arrived at very shortly, within the next few days,- and an an nouncement will be made. MR . MARK G. SMERCHANSKI (Burrows): Madam Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I'd like to direct a question to the Honourable Minister of Health in that we received The Manitoba Hospital Commission and there's no mention of the planned construction project for The Children's Hospital and I simply would like to ask him the question.

Is there anything fur ther that he can give this House in reference to the proposed plans for the Children's Hospital as compared to what he gave us some 10 days ago? HON. CHARLES H. WITNEY (Minister of Health)(Flin Flon): Madam Speaker, a letter was delivered to The Children's Hospital giving them the green light to go ahead on their sketch plans to an amount of $6 . 2 million. MR. SMERCHANSKI: Thank you. MR. S. PETERS (Elmwood): Madam Speaker, before the Orders of the Day I'd like to direct a question to -- or draw to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture.

I brought it to his attention the other day of the snow dumped in Elmwood and he at that time had stated that his engineers told him the snow would be long gone before the flood waters reached here. Since then we've had a storm and the snow now is piled up about 25 feet higher than the bank of the river. I wonder if he would get in touch with the City of Winnipeg officials and see if they can't find another place to dump snow along the river bank because the residents ·in that area there. are very very concerned. MR. J. M.

FROESE (Rhineland): Madam Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are proceeded with I would like to ask a question - Iim not sure whether to direct it to the First Minister or someone else on the government side. Has the government re·ceived any requests from cities, towns or municipalities for assistance in snow clearing due to the ·severe storm? MR . ROBUN: Madam Speaker, I'm not aware of any official request being received .. ORDERS OF THE DAY MADAM SPEAKER: The adjourned debate on the proposed motion ofthe Honourable the Member for Portage la Prairie. The Honourable the Member for St. John's. MR.

SAUL CHERNIACK; Q. C. (St. John's): Madam Speaker, whi:m I was a young, naive person I used to think that roads were built where paths had earlier been created by the.walking multitude who indicated the road by which they wanted to get from one place·to another. �As I became a little more experienced in municipal affairs I learned that there were criteria est� ablished for the construction and planning of roads and these criteria were something that were pretty positive. There were certain methods by which one could decide where to build a road and the size of the road and the nature of the road.

Then; when I arrived in this House some - is it four years ago - I listened carefully to the reports of the Minister and the· debates regard ing road planning and construction and I tried to figure out just what method was used by him in deciding where and when and what kind of roads to construct arid I came to the conclUsion th:lt he was operating sort of by feel; if he felt that it was necessary it was done; and I gradually learned that this operation of his was one which did not seem to have any clear-cut set of cri teria because I didn't hear him enunciate any.

When the questiOn of traffic counts arose and he was' asked what was the volume and the weight of traffic on certain roads and he wouldn't give the information, I came to the conclusion that possibly the important question as to weight of volume of traffice was not on the roads but rather over his threshold and I was worried very much as to· whether the· decisions which he made· in that respect were based• on pressures from people to whom he felt he ought to pay attention,

March 10, 1966 809 (MR. CHERNIACK cont'd) ......... . Now in the interval there have been a number of occasions when people have asked for information regarding construction of roads and one of the niore obvious questions that has arisen was what about traffic counts? What's the volume on any specific road? Now the Min ister refused to give that information and as far as I'm concerned he also refused, neglected or omitted to give information as to what were the criteria.

So I took a little trouble, Madam Speaker, to find out from somebody whose experience I value, just what criteria are used in determining the future plans of any road construction. Since the Minister has not seen fit to advise us of the criteria I have felt it advisable for me to advise him of the criteria that I think ought to be used and possibly as a result of what I tell him, he may then indicate to me whether or not I am right. So I would like to indicate that probably when one considers a new road construction, one decides whether the need is there based on the existing known transportation requirements.

Now that the Minister is entering the Chamber I want to tell him that I am just startmg to give him the list of criteria which I think he ought to use in deciding when to build a road or when to improve a road. And I'll just repeat that to now I have not heard from him what his criteria are.

So that in deciding on the new road construction, I would suggest that when he decides on the need, he does it on the following basis: he first decides whether or not existing roads are adequate to meet the transportation demands of existing developm ent - and to do that he has to take into aceount·traffic volumes; he has to take into account origin, destination and formation that would support a more direct service to the area in question.

He has to know the physical condition of existing facilities and whether they are able to economically support major re construction and these would be matters such as soil conditions, alignment and present service requirements.

He also has to recognize the need for a new highway or road to provide access to a new area, some sort of development that's coming up which will need to be serviced and is not now being adequately serviced; and he has to also think in terms of the development of a roadway or a highway as part of a network of a long range tr ansportation plan which would be based on predicted needs of the community as established by a comprehensive study of pre dicted land use and development - with the associated growth in traffic volumes resulting there from.

I remind him that I have twice already mentioned traffic volumes as being factors in con sidering new road construction. Then when he has to consider the existing roads and highway improvement on those he again has to recognize a need based on certain factors, combinations or all of these factors. He has to recognize whether or not there is substantial failure of the existing surface due to the termination of the reasonable life of surface treatment.

He has to recognize the substantial failure of the surface it it's due to base failure in the road, so that there might have to be reconstruction of the base: And he must know the traffic volumes, such that a gravel surface with attendant dust and normal surface hazards, such as loose gravel and washboard might unduly restrict the speed of travel.

He has to know the traffic volumes such that existing surface of gravel must have a paved surface to permit and support traffic loading without continuous costly maintenance of grading and oil treatment with the attendant hazards of dust and severe pothole development. ·And he must know 1the traffic volumes that cannot be adequately and safely provided for without widen� ing the existing roadway or the provision of physically separated roadways for each direction of travel.

This might develop where he knows that there is a long single line of traffic develop ing at some peak flow period which will cause a slow-up or high accident frequency or heavy use by large transport trucks, irregular alignment of highways and the like. Now these are the criteria that I would have hoped he would have enunciated in the few years that I have been in the House and which I claim he has not done.

It is my definite im pression that he has not done anything to inform us of the basis on which he makes decisions other than the casual aside remarks which are made by saying "Oh yes, I've looked after your constituency; Oh, the member needn't worry, I'm thinking about his for next year." I hate to' think that that is an important criteria for him and yet, what else could be if he hasn't seen fit to tell us what the criteria are?

I want to remind the Honourable Minister that young as he is, he no doubt thinks in the light of what future events may take place and it's quite possible that he will not be in his pre sent post for a long time. I've heard it said that the value of a person in public office is not only determined on the contribution he makes while he is there, but the preparation he makes

810 March 10, 1966 (MR. CHERNIACK cont'd) ........ so that when he leaves there is someone else who can carry on the work as well as he did. And since it is certain that he will not always occupy this post and since it is possible that other Members of this Assembly present now, might eventually occupy the post, I would think it would be nothing better than good statesmanship for him to make dear to all of us just how he operates - what does he do?

How does he think about these things, what plans does he make, what information does he require, so whichever one of us eventually follows in his footsteps will have that experience with which to be able to step right in and npt learn afresh the hard road which he has had to work out for himself. So I appeal to him as a statesman to give us the information.

I appeal to him as a politician to make it clear that his decisions are not based on politi cal motivation; to make it clear to us that it is not a question of favoritism for one constituency as against another - where political parties do not determine the advances made in the road construction in any particular constituency, but rather that there are criteria he uses. And I challenge him when he does that, to tell us that traffic counts are just a part, just a relative minor part. Now these are not the words he used, but he certainly made it clear that traffic counts alone are not enough.

I say to the honourable minister that if we in our ignorance, think that traffic counts are the only criteria, he in his experience and wisdom should make it clear just w)lat the others are and how they are applied; and if we in our ignorance want to have in adequate information, then surely he ought to supply the information we request, so that he can then point out to us how inadequate are the arguments we present based on this information.

Now he has said something like "Well traffic counts are only taken for short periods of time and therefore they are not in themselves conclusive." Well this is nonsense because if the traffic counts are of value to him, they must have been taken for so long a period that he is able to make use of these traffic counts otherwise he's throwing out government money which I would think he would never wa.rit to do. So that if he thinks traffic counts are important to him then he ought to recognize that traffic counts are important to others in this House.

If he thinks other criteria are important to him, by all means he ought to give that information to the House, so that when we reach his estimates we can intelligently review them and not have the kind of discussion we have had in the past, in the short past in which I have been present, where I be lieve we have not received any,. shall I say concrete argument as to his reasons for doing the work he does.

I believe that he has made a strong effort to develop the road system and for all I know it's been done very well, but we as members of this House are entitled to share with him his knowledge, his experience and judge his conclusions. It seems to me that almost every department I can think of, is able to give us reasons for what they do - not something that's hidden away in drawers somewhere for the information of the Department alone but some justi fication.

I appeal again to the Minister to recognize that there are Ministers in this House and in other Houses and in higher echelons of government who have back tracked. There have been times recently where the First Minister found it necessary to reverse a decision made by a Cabinet Minister and heads have not always fallen, but surely --the Honourable the First Minister thinks I am speaking of him.

I am not aware yet that he has reversed a decision of his Cabinet, and he is smiling and nodding, but I have enough confidence in the integrity and good judgment of the First Minister of this Province that if he thought it was advisable he would do so and do so publicly without necessarily cutting off the head of the C ahinet Minister. MR . ROBLJN: What about my head? MR . CHERNIACK: Well, I would hope that the First Minister would place his head on the same tray before the public and offer it if it was deemed necessary so to do.

I appeal firstly to the Minister of Highways that he reconsider this I believe, rash and I believe foolish decision that he made some years ago and which he now feels he has to continue for consistency's sake. I appeal to him to think through what I've said and see if there is any merit in what I said, and if there is, that he volunteer the information that is not being asked. By all means teach us what to ask and we will ask the intelligent question which he seems to feel we ought to ask.

I would appeal to him that if he is so stubborn about it that he doesn't want to do it then he should consult with his fellow Cabinet Ministers to see whether or not it would be a better presentation for the people of this province, and indeed for this House, to change his mind about that arbitrary decision he made sometime ago and give the information which when it is given will be either as inconsequential as he says it is or important enough to justify the change of mind that he had.

And finally, if he won't do that then I would suggest that the Honourable the First Minister should look around him and see whether or not all decisions being made in

March 10, 19166 811 (MR. CHERNIACK cont'd) ....... his immediate neighbor hood are correct and ought to be re- versed. Certaihly it's such a minor thing to have to talk about that I will now sit down and apolo gize to the House on behalf of the Minister of Highways for having found it necessary to take up your time to discuss a matter of this insignificance. MADAM SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question? MR. MOLGAT: Madam Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Lake side, that the debate be adjourned. MADAM SPEAKER presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried.

I wonder if I might have permission of the House although we have passed the Orders of the Day, to greet this year's Easter Seal Timmy who just arrived in the Speaker's Gallery. Timmy is ten year old Brian Stocks of Portage la Prairie and he is seated in the Speaker's Gallery with his parents and his devoted sister Betty Anne and also with Mr. Frank S. Kovitz who is chairman of the 1966 Easter Seal Campaign. Timmy has cerebral palsy and he has had it since the day he was born. His association with the Society has been carried on since the very earliest days of his life.

At one time Timmy was confined to a wheelchair but he has since been fitted with braces and he is able to get about on canes. A cheerful outgoing lad, he is a Grave V student at West Curtis school where his teachers report him to be an industrious student. • We are pleased to have you here today Timmy and we wish to take this opportunity to give public recognition to the Society for Crippled Children and Adults of Manitoba for its en couraging work with people who are handicapped. On behalf of all Members of this Legislative Assembly we welcome you.

MADAM SPEAKER: The adjourned debate on the proposed motion of the Honourable the Member for Por tage. The Honourable the Minister of Industry and Commerce. HON. GURNEY EVANS (Minister of Industry & Commerce) (FortRouge): Madam Speaker I adjourn this for the benefit of the First Minister. MR. R.OBUN: Madam Speaker, we will be glad to accept this Order.

I just wanted to point out to the House however that we do not keep the information in this form, consequently it will be necessary to search out all the several hundred thousand cheques that have been is sued in order to determine the dates on which they were received if we possibly can, from the date stamps on the material, and then the date on which the payments went out. So we will be glad to accept the Order but I warn the House it may be a slow process. MADAM SPEAKER put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MADAM SPEAKER: The adjourned debate on the second reading of Bill No. 7.

The Honourable the Attorney-General. HON. STEW ART E. McLEAN, Q. C. (Attorney-General) (Dauphin): Madam Speaker, may we have leave to have this matter stand. MADAM SPEAKER: Agreed. The adjourned debate on the second reading of Bill No. 44. The Honourable the Member for St. Boniface. MR. LAURENT DESJARDINS (St. Boniface): Madam Speaker, quite a few speakers spoke on this yesterday but there was nothing from the members of the government side. We asked the Honourable the Minister that brought in this Bill the reasons why the Board had to be increased from five to seven but we haven't heard any reason at all.

It seems that we've never had any complaints that things weren't going well with the Manitoba Telephone System. In fact, it's been qulite the opposite, that this is something that's been going quite well and all of a sudden we are asked to name two more members. Now this government is talking about being very creative - and it has been because it has created more boards and commissions . . . . . we received some of this information -- this document here, Madam Speaker, in 1962. Last year we asked the numbers of boards and commissions that were named and we never received the informaUon.

Now this Conservative Government, Madam Speaker, has been very liberal - liberal that is with the taxpayers' money; and it has also been very socialistic, brought in more welfare measures, but it always seemed to be more interested in the welfare of the - first of all, the members of the Cabinet and then the backbenchers that seem to follow in the back, and some of their own friends. Last year we had a tailor-'I'nade pension for the members of the Cabinet. We were told by the same Minister - he's bringing in this bill again -he seems to be the scapegoat for the government on this. I don't know why.

It seems that he would rebel once in a while. They brought in a - he told us last year that the Cabfuet Minister would be

812 March 10 , 1966 (MR. DESJARDINS cont'd) ....... more independent if they had a pension. They had to be com- pensated for all the sacrifices that they were making. And after all, it would take them a while to rehabilitate themselves. once they were swept out of office. Well it's no secret now -we have heard from our Conservative friends that were at this 'do' last night that we are going to have an election very soon -and maybe we're worried about this rehabilitation so we're trying to make room for a couple more, to take care of a couple more people on this Board of the Tele phones.

Oh, last year, the Minister of Mines, I think, told us the same thing with a smile on his face, the same as the Minister of Labour and Municipal Affairs -right now they -it was ridi culous to even discuss the question of pensions; it was ridiculous to take the time of the House; it was a waste of time, we were told last year. And everybody on the other side -or most everybody thinks this is a big joke again. It's going to go through anyway and maybe they will be the lucky ones who'll get this job of - this $3, 000 a year or so.

Surely, Madam Speaker, surely we have enough boards --and this is only since '62 and I think that they have worked overtime since then --we've had enough boards created by this group. Surely, Madam Speaker, we 're not going to start the second time around and start in creasing the'se boards. Because this is what it seems that we're doing now. There is no rea son whatsoever ·for. the increase of this board and I don't think that it's goo!i enough - I for one, don't think that it's good enough to talk about what's going on in the Federal Government or other provinces.

The government tried and the Minister tried the same thing last year. Well they have a pension in Quebec or in Ottawa. Madam Speaker, we're elected here to try to take care of the affairs of Manitoba, not automatically because we're elected to this House to take care of the Federal Government or the provincial governments in other provinces, and I think that it is imperative that we should be informed, that we should know why- the reason why. there is an urgent need for two more members on the Telephone Board.

I don't think that it's good enough, Madam Speaker, to smile and laugh and talk about the Senate because I always felt that two wrongs would never make a right. Though it's possible that there are abuses and it's not only possible, there are other abuses in the Federal Government no matter who forms the government, and in other provinces, but that doesn't mean that automatically that the only reason and the main reason that we could have to do anything like that, would say, well I took the trouble of looking out and seeing what's going on in other provinces.

This is what we were told last year, brought in all the questions of the different government -provincial government and federal government that had pensions. The Honourable Minister said at the time, it just happened that we're ready for this, at the tail end of the Session -something that he said a few days ago on another matter. Well, Madam Speaker, I think that we have a responsibility towards the people of Manitoba and it's not just to look after ourselves or our friends or the members of our party.

There is enough money spent for the administration -we're getting a salary and it seems that the government is pushing its responsibility on boards and commissions and has been doing that ever since it was elected in 1958 and now it's taking care of more friends. If the Minister feels that there should be seven to the board, well I think that it is only fair that this government should change their policy right now.

There's enough well meaning and well informed people in this province of ours that we don't have to go to the members of this House, or the ex-members of this House, to have them sit on a board, a government board. I think that the people that are here are recompensed enough for the sacrifice that they do; I think that they've got enough to look after their constituents and so on, that these boards should be left to people that probably know a little more about these things, people that are not getting just a plum or getting something for what they've done.

This is pretty sad indeed if we're going to start -we're complaining about the Senate now -maybe this is something that could be discussed at a future date; maybe a lot of the members of this House would have ideas on this, especially those that don't belong to the party in question, I guess. That might be possible, but I think that all of us have ideas on that. But that doesn't mean that because this is done we should start the same thing here in Manitoba and do it in a kind of a sly way by getting boards and naming people to these boards.

Madam Speaker, unless the Minister when he is ready to close the debate, if he tells us why this great rush for these added members of the board, if he tells of a change of policy of the government, of not having this as just another way to take care of the members of their party, I'm afraid that we will not be able to vote for the principle of this bilL MADAM SPEAKER: Are you .ready for the question?

March 10, 1H66 813 MR . STEINKOPF: Madam Speaker, here is a very simple business bill. It contains two suggestions, both of them designed to improve the service and the earning power of the Telephone System. The honoural;Jle members of the opposition studied it very carefully and then after considerable study opposed one part of the bill because they wished to read into it a meaning that they themselves probably would like to see if they were running things.

The honourable member who has just spoken has attributed a few thi�gs to me, sayings that I made in the past, a very general form, and some of them may be correct, but I feel that at least one or two of them were pretty farfetched. He mentioned amongst other things that we were liberal with the taxpayers' money, particularly when it come·s to paying Cabinet Ministers $12, 500 a year. say. MR . DESJARDINS: I didn't say that. MR . STEINKOPF: Well you said, insofar as the Cabinet Ministers are concerned. MR . DESJARDINS: I was talking about the pension of last year and this bill. I didn't MR .

STEINKOPF: Well that was disjointed from the little part of the pension and I'll come to that too. MR . DESJARDINS: All right. MR . STEINKOPF: The slyness which he attributes to us in trying to sneak, I presume, into this Chamber a bill that would provide for two more spaces on the board of members of this House or ex-members of the Conservative Party, is pretty farfetched in itself too. The Act provides that a member of the Telephone Commission could also be a member of this House or even of the Executive Council.

This was brought up by the Honourable Leader of the Opposition and the inference was that the Telephone Commission was packed with members of the House, Cabinet Ministers, rundown ex-Conservatives and the likes.

The truth is that of all of the five. members of the board, there is only one member in any one of these classes, and that is the Honourable Member for Morris and --(Interjec tion)-- Well I think old age is catching up with him, he has a few infirmities but he's still doing a pretty good job on the board. --(Interjection)-- His value to the board was not questioned by the Honourable Leader of the Opposition, he made it quite clear that there was nothing personal.

So that to jum p at the rather rough conclusion that the purpose of the exercise was to provide a Senate seat for another couple of m embers of this party, is I say pretty farfetched. I think that it is an amazing group of businessmen that face us on this side, they are experts on all fields whether it's telephones or agriculture or utilities and they're stuck - and pension plans, I'll get to that too - they know all of the answers and they come up with the same kind of a conclusion that they're all designed for the benefit of a few of us on this side of the House.

The facts of the matter, Madam Speaker, are that there are four members of the present board who meet between 15 and 20 times a year and at the same time are called upon almost daily for some kind of a consultation or some interest in the operation of the Telephone System. Each one of the four receive a salary of $3, 000 a year or a total of $12, 000, and for this they are responsible for the operations of a more than $30 million a year business. And the fifth member of the commission is the general manager who also acts as chairman of the board.

During the period between April 1958 and September 1965, the huge sum of $115, 703, 054 was spent by the Telephones on additions to plant and equipment. This is big business and to pay a board $12, 000 a year to supervise this business is not by any businessman's yardstick an ex orbitant amount.

I found in the few years that I've been out of business and in the House that this government knows how to run business, particularly big business, and it doesn't play games with business or pick fruit, not even plums, and when it is intent on running a utility the size of the Telephones, that is precisely what it's doing. We will have no part, Madam Speaker, of turning Telephones or any other operation in :which the government is interested in of turning them into plum orchards or cabbage patches or the many kinds of things that are suggested.

As a matter of fact, I think that the opposition could look under every cabbage leaf and they'd have a heck of a time finding anything that wasn't akin to a nice clean cut crisp business operation. What they would find, if they were looking into the Telephones, is telephones in good order, being rented and serviced at lower rates than most communities in Canada and at the same time they are giving better service and still reducing rates. They also are holding their own profitwise and using profits for rate stabilization and keeping thei� facilities available to more and more Manitobans.

The government is interested in appointing the best man for the job. This is a government policy. It's not a sheer coincidence that all the best men happen to be on this side of the House and for that reason if you were looking· for someone to put them on

814 March 10, 1966 (MR. STEINKOPF cont'd) ... , .... the Board you would probably look on this side first. It is felt that two more members of the Commission would add much to the representation and the facilities and the operation of the Telephone System. I'm sure that the members of the other side have heard that things are happening in the north and it might be an interesting idea: to have a: representative from the north on the Telephone Commission so that we could have a pretty good cross-section of what was going on.

My learned friends thirik that, or suggested that I was the scapegoat or am the scapegoat, bringing in all of these illuminating bills and I want to assure them that it's an honour. I feel al ittle bit self-conscious of the fact that I'm not always able to sell them but this is a weakness on my part and I have no one to blame but myself. I was fortunate enough last year to bring in the Pension Bill - not unfortunate. MR. DESJARDINS: You accept the responsibility then? MR. STEINKOPF: I certainly do, and quite often, the Honourable Member for St.

Boni face will be happy to know when I want to enjoy some very very light reading I take out Hansard for last year and read the pages and pages of nothing that he spoke at the time the pension bill was before us. MR. DESJARDINS: We could have an interesting debate on that. I can quote 'yours. Bring it in. Bring it in again. MR.

STEINKOPF: I was hoping they woUld ask me that, Madam Speaker, because I think -- and this is what I've detected all through this debate because they brought up the Pension Bill, we didn't -- that as they see the events of the days coming closer and the need for a pension on that side, stronger and stronger, and after last night and an election looming that there isn't much time left to bring in a pension bill, that they would love to have had at least a little security that that pension woUld have given them.

I'm sorry that I am too busy bringing in bills like this at this session and things like The Highway Traffic Act to be con cerned about their welfare and to help them out by reintroducing the pension bill nci matter how hard they try. Mayb e we coUld bring in a welfare bill. All of that, Madam Speaker, is as you know, pretty extraneous but I did think that I should bring in some kind of an answer to the pension bill, because what it is has 'to do with the tele phone bill and adding two members to the Board of the Telephones I' ll never know.

I suggest that we need the two members of the Telephone Commission; it is done in the intention of the best interests of running a well run utility and that reason: and for that reason only we bring in this bill and we hope that sooner or later the members on the other side will believe it and see the light. MR. ELMAN GUTTORMSON (St. George): Madam Speaker, before we take a vote on this will the Minister permit a question? Will the Minister give the House assurance that the government will not appoint any present or former member of this Legislature to that Board? MR .

STEINKOPF: I have no intention of doing that, Madam Speaker. It may be that they'll be the best people and they will be appointed. MADAM SPEAKER put the question and after a voice vote declared the motion carried. MR. GUTTORMSON: Yeas, and Nays, Madam Sp'ea.ker. MADAM SPEAKER: Call in the Members. Order please. The question before the House, second reading of Bill No. 44,

An Act to Amend The Manitoba Telephone Act. A standing vote was taken, the resUlts being as follows: YEAS: Messrs. Alexander, Baizley, Bjronson, Carroll, Cherniack, Cowan, Evans, Hamilton, Harris, Harriscin, Hutton, Jeannotte, Johnson, Klym, Lissarrian, Lyon, McDonald, McGregor, McKellar, McLean, Martin, Mills, Moeller, Paulley, Peters, Seaborn, Shewman, Smell1e, Stanes, Steinkopf, Strickland, Watt, Weir, Witney, Wright and Mrs. Morrison. NAYS: Messrs. Barkman, Cai:npbell, Desjardins, Froese, Guttormson, Hillhouse, Hryhorczuk, Johnston, Molgat, Patrick, Shoemaker, Smerchanski, Tanchak and Vielfaure. MR.

CLERK: Yeas, 36; Nays, 14. MADAM SPEAKER: I declare the motion carried. MR . EVANS: Madam Speaker, I beg to move, seconded by the Honourable Minister of Education, that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the supply to be granted to Her Majesty. MADAM SPEAKER presented the motion and after a voice vote declared the motion carried and the House resolved itself into a Committee of Supply with the Honourable Member for Winnipeg Centre in the Chair.

March 10, 1�966 815 COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY MR . CHAffiMAN: Resolution No. 31 passed; 32 - - - MR . ARTHUR E. WRIGHT (Seven Oaks): Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak on the subject of education, not as one well versed on the academic· aspect but rather as one who looks up on education as a mighty force which has brought us a long way from the cave but could very con ceivably return us to it. I wonder at times if we must wait to see the flames instead of accept ing the testimony of the smoke. In education rests the greatest hope that mankind can put its house in order before it is too late.

I believe it was Joseph Addison, as far back as 1774, who said, or rather he likened the human soul, without education, as marble lying in the quarry, not reaching its potential in beauty and usefulness until it was transformed by the polisher's hand. I think we should think about our objectives in regard to education. The greater the free dom we have to choose and to do, the greater is our need for guidance services because these freedoms bring in their wake pressures such as human beings have not formerly experienced. I don't think we are paying enough attention to these pressures in society today.

Mr.Robert Bend, the Superintendant of the Transcona-S prinfield School Division and a former Minister of Health for Manitoba, said recently that the pressures on many of our boys and girls in school today are tremendous and unnecessary. Economic satisfaction is certainly not to be discounted in our society but I wonder at times if we are not failing in the important job of guiding and' pointing out to our young people that job satisfaction and its dividend, the ability to relax, is of paramount importance. Mr.

Chairman, today we see in industry far too many people who are suffering from ten sions at a time in history when we have a shorter work week. Because of the free enterprise system and the need to keep increasing our efficiency with too often the prevalence of time study engineers, we have many people forced into early retirement because of attentions of industry, and yet here we are tolerating such a thing in our educational system.

A pamphlet issued by authority of the Minister of Labour at Ottawa stresses the economic side, and I quote: "Every year of high school adds $238 .0 0 to your income, and matriculation year alone adds $466 . 00 a year to it. In lifetime earnings the value of a high school education over grade school is placed about $42, 000. 00. Young people are idealists and I believe could be by proper guidance attracted to the field in which they would find the greatest job satisfaction and as a result reach their full potential in service to society. Many parents today, Mr.

Chairman, are bewildered as to why our sophisticated and complex educational system is taking so long to admit that the phonetic system of teaching children to read is still the best. In fact, we have many students today that can't even write. With today•s knowledge explosion, with its apparent need for continuous curriculum revision will have no place for this kind of delayed assessment of the facts in experimental research. We will have to find out a lot sooner about some of our research than we did find out about the teaching of reading by the phonetic system.

But education today has to consider more thari curriculum. It must take into account the backgrotmd and the future of the pupil and his emo tional make-up. It needs to offer help in the change from childhood to maturity. It took too long to realize that in a class of six year olds, very often mental ages range from 4 to 8 years and we still haven't got to the point where we should grade beginners according to mental age, instead of chronological age.

Some years ago, I attended the Workers Educational Classes at the old University on Broadway ·· so you will know it was some years ago - taking Child Psychology, anything I thought might help me in trying to raise a family. I remembered then that in Toronto they had psychologists in the schools, so that every class of six year olds were interviewed and their mental age assessment was made, so that they didn't all start in the one class.

You can imagine when you start a young boy with the mental age of 4 in a class with other children who have mental ages: of up to 8 years of age, how he has an uphill climb all the way. Progress in some scientific fields is increasing so fast that in order to get graduates anywhere near the frontiers of knowledge education will have to be speeded up. Not only Mr. Chairman, is it increasing so fast, C. P. Snow of Great Britain says that commtirucations are almost at a standstill so that specialization has advanced to the point when a physicist doesn't understand a chemist.

Now automation will make it necessary to not only educate people to cope with and enjoy leisure but to assist them to orientate themselves in their attitude to work, and this might seem a strange thing. But automation, there hasn't been much written about it but the potential of technology and of automation and the use of cybernetics in automation now,

816 March 10, 1966 (MR. WRIGHT cont'd) .......• leaves the field very much to speculation. Certainly in trying to help people to reorientate themselves and to their attitude to work calls for guidance and it calls for people trained in guidance work - and I'm thinking here of psychologists. And when I talk about p'sychologists I don't mean that everybody is mentally sick. I look upon a psycholo gist as ancillary to the psychiatrist just as I look upon the dental mechanic as being ancillary to the dentist.

Much of the work of the psychiatrist can be turned over - the laborious part of the work can be turned over to the psychologist. The modern concept of treating mental illness, surely must call for the training of not only more psychiatrists but psychologists as well. The knowledge explosion will make it necessary not only for the training of guidance counsellors and psychologists for our schools, but for industry also, because the days of the carrot or the stick are gone forever in motivating people to want to work. So I say, Mr. Chairman, that some ,strange problems will be upon us in the not too distant future.

I was very happy when! heard the announcement about the Nelson River and the complex of the large pulp and paper mill development of the north. I being a Manitoban, I don't think anyone coUld fail to realize the significance of this. In my speech on the throne debate I men tioned the importance -- I followed along the tenure of the Honourable Member for Churchill in realizing the importance of our north.

Then I wondered about all the trained people that would be needed for this large opening up of our northern country and I began to wonder why our government which has been working on this accomplishment for, they said four years or so, didn't avail itself of more of the Federal Government money of 643 millions of dollars that was appropriated in 1962 for Technical and Vocational Training. Surely that would have been the time. They must have had confidence in their ability to bring this large and wanted develop ment to fruition.

I remember going to visit the little plywood factory two years ago at Birch River and when I got there I found there was an instructor there from British Columbia to show us how to process plywood in the Province of Manitoba and I realized then that there was a lack of communication between our government and our people who are supposed to be training help for these industries. Mr. Chairman, why is it that we always have to have an explosion or some other kind before we see the need,' whether it's a population explosion or an education explosion or in dustrial explosion? This is the point that baffles me.

I fail to see why - they say that nature always gives warnings. I suggest that there are other warnings that pointed to the need for this. The government white paper issued a few weeks ago and dramatically named the proposals for Phase 2 of the educational revolution in Manitoba is to be commended and its some ten foolscap pages of intentions are proof that the progress in education in this province has been convulsive rather than continuous. I just want to take a brief moment, Mr. Chairman, to point out some of the things to back up this argument.

It mentions that to complement these develop ments - and its talking about the developments of requiring technical and vocational schools in our province -t o complement these developments the most comprehensive program of orienta tion and in-service training sessions for teachers ever seen in this province has been intro duced, using all available media. Then my mind went back to a resolution that was presented in this house calling for the use of TV for instruction purposes and how the government voted against it.

Now I take it that they certainly, when they say using all available media they certainly will not overlook this now. I was glad to know that full new steps which will lead to much greater flexibility in the policies and methods by which major improvement may be introduced and established in local administration will be proposed. This I think is certainly to the good because 200 school dis tricts have been closed for two or more years and to bring these under the official board would certainly be a good thing. The Interlake area - much has been said so far in this Session, Mr.

Chairman, about the Inter lake area and all I can say is to certainly approve anything that is done in thelnterlake area because I think the key to the whole situation there is certainly education, but as I said the other night once you give the young people in the Interlake area an education they are going to leave it, cause let's not fool ourselves it's -ml area of marginal land. That doesn't mean we can't use it to its best use in ranching. I think the government already knows and are working on that. But I say good lllck to them in anything they do in the Interlake area.

I am happy to note that additional money will be provided for the foundation program and I believe it takes some $13 million to successfully do this .. I was also happy to note that there will be grants for classes for the mentally retarded and this has long been overdue, because it did seem unfair to peoplewho have children lik� this and had to pay the normal share of school

Marqh 10, 1966 817 (MR. WRIGH'T cont'd) ...... taxation and then on top of that had to provide for the education and care of these children. On Page 3 I'm very happy to see that in all this revision care is being taken to insure the quality of education doesn't suffer. This surely is a noble aim because I want to suggest that if it hadn't been for the City of Winnipeg and its high standards and its ability to suffer the cost of such, we would not have had the standards in Manitoba that we have today.

The mention of summer and evening courses and elimination of fees for teacher training and a more extensive provision of bursaries and scholarships is cert.ainly to be commended. It is expected that from 25 to 40% of Manitoba's high school population will eventually enter vocational se condary schools and yet I find that only 12. 7% of the total enrollment in our high scl).ools today are enrolled in the General Cou rse. In the Se ven Oaks Schoo l Division it's somewh3.t less, 10. 7% I believe it is. The objiective is an adequate number of institutes offering training in trades and tech nologies.

It says the space originally provided at the Institute of Technology is now fully occupied after ,the third year of opera tion. I think that in itself shows that the peed 'was long known about this type of training. It talks about high school s, Mr. Chairman, some small high schools which may not fit into the new concept and those will have to be converted to ele mentary schools and this seems to make sense.

I also note that large new high schools will be authorized where necessa ry but I'm very happy to see that only under very exceptional circumstances will the Minister authorize the construction of small high schools\ I think this meets with the approval of teachers and boards and parents alike. We melt with a teachers group one day - a joint group of trustees and teachers.

I notice that the government will seek the aid of the trustees and teachers organizations in determining the nature and priority of programs which will lead to further equalization of educational opportunities throughout the province� I think that's important because I think that there haven't been the necessa ry things done to make sure we have equal educational opportunities throughout the province; and certainly adult education is of paramount importance because many people in a lifetime will have to change their jobs due to the new concept of automation. Well, Mr .

Chairman, I said that the white paper was certainly to be commended provid ing all the intentions are carried out and I know that the Minister is certainly enthusi astic and I know that hte will certainly try. . I don't think we want to question, Mr. Chairman, whether there has been progress made in education :in Manitoba. I ·don't think that's the point. The larger school division plari alone is ample proof that much has been accomplished but I suggest there is no doubt that we are not meeting the needs -t hat's a favorite term of this government, Mr .

Chairman, "meeting the needs " - we are not meeting the need of many students in this province and I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the City of Winnipeg for its leadership in continually and not spasmodica lly upgrading and having to pay for its unfair share of the cost of education. I believe the increas ing costs of education alone will make it necess ary to guarantee its efficiency. We are reach ing the point now when the staggering cost of education, especially to the local taxpayer iS certainly going to make him well aware of a need for efficiency.

I think it has taken toolo ngtoo to find out that school buildings can and should be used more, used more hours of the day and the Comm unity school concept that's carried out by the Seven Oaks School Division is worthy of emulation. I would just like to read briefly, Mr. Chairman, from a booklet issued by the Seven Oaks School Division. This was after the first year of operation.

It said, "the board is very happy with the use of schools after regular school hours by the children and adults of the division and the board feels that the community is being enriched by this program and th3.t the whole community is being brought tog ether in a way not known before. A closer relationship is also being est ablished between the home and school and the board hopes that parents will continue to take advantage of the opportunity to make full use of the school facilities. The se schools are paid for by the community and are avaiiable for the community use.

It is the board's understanding that this program, with its liberal philos ophy, is the first of its kind in Canada. " I only hope that the people in Manitoba will see fit to follow this wo rthy concept. The concern and.the over costs and the need for efficiency has brought about more co operation between trus tees, parents and teachers. This is something that is becom ing more apparent every day. But the catalyst who enhanced the positive thinking of this group is govern ment which must assu me a far greater share of the financial res ponsibilities of education.

Well when ! was thinking about the huge Nelson development, Mr. Chairman, and the ll:eed for

BIB March 10, 1966 (MR. WRIGHT cont'd) .•..... training and the need for education, my mind went back to the Speech from the Throne and I read: "My Ministers inform me that coupled with very high employment and very low unemployment, there is a substantial shortage or workers to fill all the job opportunities available . Measures to increase the supply of skilled workers will be intensified and the establishment of a Director of Immigration will be recommended to help rectify, on a carefully selected and qualified basis, the shortage of skilled workers.

The in flow of relations and friends of citizens of Manitoba will be particularly encouraged. " And I think we could go along with the sentiment there - Manitoba certainly needs more citizens. It is disco'uraging to find though that we admit that we haven't dorie very much to train native Manitobans when we laiow that this development was on the drawirig board, as it were. Now, Mr. Chairman, Manitoba is blessed with natural resources some of which are. not readily available, such as our sister provinces, but are coming to light now, such as the Thompson Nickel complex.

I hope that the developments as announced in this House during the last few days will certainly be a reality soon. As I said before there is not a question about the en thusiasm of the Minister and his Department in trying to further education in this province and I wish them well. I don't think I'll say anything more, Mr. Chairman, I'll wait for the different items. MR ·. M. N. HRYHORCZU K, Q. C. (Ethelbert Plains): Mr. Chairman, I was impressed with the optimism of the Honourable the Minister of Education. He certainly painted a very rosy and bright future for Manitobans in the field of education.

He covered about everything you could think of in the field of education in his white paper and the other documents that were released at a iater date. But he is an idealist, we k:b.ow from past experience, because we've had the occasion to see him act when he was the Minister of Health and Welfare when they brought in the Social Allowances Act, held it up as a model for all the other provinces of Canada to look at - in fact I believe he informed the House that at one time h8 had inquiries from other provinces for the Act because they wanted to see it and they were very impressed with it.

Well it so happens that parts of that Act have not been implemented' to date.. Now I hope that the same thing doesn't happen with this rosy and bright future as forecast by the Minister in the field of education. There hasn't been very material change in the divisions in some parts of rural Manitoba and especially in mine, and I think it applies to a great many more. I do believe - and I'm saying this most sincerely, not in the way of criticism - that some of us in rural parts have paid a tremendous price for the advantages we have received in the secondary school divisions.

In some areas, and these may be a little more than a few, we still haven't the equality of op portunity and to us Phase One has just started and not finished. The Minister is talking about a second Phase in the field of education. Well we're far from finished with the first one, as I said, in many areas of the Province of Manitoba. It's most unfortunate because matters as a whole are becoming more serious insofar as our children are concerned and it is most ser ious to our children in these rural areas that today their hope for advancement is less than it was seven or eight years ago.

Had the Royal Commission recommendations been followed closely and to the letter, I doubt whether these circumstances would be found in these areas today. As far as teachers are concerned, we're still served by unqualified teachers and al though the statement is true that more and more of our teachers are becoming m'ore arid more qualified, I believe it is also true to say that more and more of our teachers are becoming less and less qualified.

The changes in curriculum, especially in the elementary level, the changes in curriculum and everything else, means retraining and if we hope to accomplish what the Honourable Minister has been telling us are the plans of the government - and that is the plans to extend vocational, technological and other phases of education - I wonder how he intends to do it.

If the government wasn't able in the past seven years to supply the secondary schools with quali fied teachers, which is only a very small portion of the over- all plan, howdot hey hopeto be able to supply qualified teachers for a plan as vast as is set out in the white paper. I do hope the Department of Education will put a little more stress on what has not been finished in Phase One. of the educational program. I do hope that the mistakes of the past will be corre ct ed and correcte d soon.

We are told that oniy a small percentage of the student body will be able to qualify for the University Entrance Course . We are told that our hope is in the General Course. Unfortunately, we have not the teachers to give us the basic training for · advancement in technological courses. In some of our areas all you ca."l take in the way of vocational or technological training in the high schools is a Commercial Course and there are "

March 10, 1966 81 9 (MR. HRYHORC ZUK cont'd) .... some schools in which from 60 to 80 percent of the students are taking the General Course and are taking the Commercial Course which is usele ss, will be useless to the biggest part of them. They'll not be able to use it to enter into any other fields in teclmology or vocation with this commercial training. So I say to the Minister that we st ill have got a long way to go to complete Phase One in many parts of the province. I note that he has stated that there will be no more small high schools if it can be possi bly helped.

But we will have to take. steps to see that these small high schools that we now have and I beliE:JVe the figure is something over 200 in the Province of Manitoba - that they are either consol idated or that larger schools are built and staffed in the very near future, because if this big program is undertaken there is always the danger that the secondary schools that are far behind will not be improved to meet up with the qualifications set in other high schools in the province, espec ially in the urb an areas . The Minister has said that we will use the small high schools for elementary grades.

Well before you can do that, Mr . Chairman, we must have large high schools to accommodate the students . And I'd also like to tell him that the one, two, three and four room high schools that we have are going to be far too small for the elementary schools if w1� have the elementary schools go into divisions . They will have to be one grade per teacher or one subject per teacher and these small high schools will be useless in that regard.

I do not want to be too critical because I can quite understand that this is a tremendously large jo b but I think we want to be fair to rural Manitoba and I'd like the Minister before his Es timates a�re completed to tell us that his first concern is going to be to upgrade those high schools in the Province of Manitoba that need upgrading, even before he does anything else, because then he is going to find himself with a log jam in education.

And if we can have that assura nce that a special effort will be made to improve the standards in the small high schools scattered throughout the province, before any other steps are taken, I am quite sure that that will be good news to many of us. I said I wasn't going to take up too much time, I don't want to repeat year after year what I have to say about this.

I think I have touched on the salient points that concern us and I do hope that the Minister takes this as - not criticism in the sense to hurt, but a request on behalf of the many students in the Province of Manitoba that are looking forward to at least a chance at equality of opportunity. MR. STEVE PATRICK (Assi niboia): Mr . Chairman, during the Throne Speech debate I attributed most of my remarks in respect to education and I did make some suggestions which I hoped the Honourable Minister would have replied to or would undertake to give me some answers to.

Since that time, we had tabled the white paper on education and some of the parts are somewhat encouraging and the part that I would want to mention at this time is the recruit ment of candidates for teachers which is quite encouraging and that the government will also pay the tuition fees levied by the university for the training of teachers. But the point that I'm concerned with at the pres ent time is what are we going to do with the shortage of teachers ? Is it not the fact that one out of eight students today in Manitoba, or one out of eight teachers, do not meet the minimum requirements in Manitoba ?

And is is not the fact that 250 schools in Manitoba do not, or cannot offer the General Course and a Univer sity Cou rse '? It seems to me that according to the Manitoba Teachers' Society information and records there is somewhat over 10, 000 children in Manitoba who do not have qualified teachers. So I think that some action has to be taken immediately in respect to teacher shortage s.

The other day in the paper I noticed an ad where somebody was here from Alberta recruiting teachers and I feel before we lose teachers to other provinces it may be time that we have to raise the teachers' salary equivalent to what they pay in Alberta or Saskatchewan if this is what it takes to keep the teachers here.

I think this situation is almost drastic and we have to do so mething about it because as far as recruitment and teacher -- the program that we're going to do now is quite encouraging but this will be a few years hence before we will have more teachers and I think we have to do somet hing in order to keep the teachers here. I'v e also mentioned that there should be some basis of promoting teachers. I think this could be done quite easily and I cannot see a teacher that's performing and doing a real good jo b why he cannot be promoted much faster than they are at the present time.

The other point that I did say in the Throne Speech and I think it was mentioned by the Honourable Member for Emerson, that t.oday many principals are performing duties and doing work in the way of discussi ons with parents and type of office work that I feel should be done by office secretaries because their time is too valuable to do this type of work. I think they could be teaching and probably counselling.

82 0 March 10, 1966 (r.ffi . PATRICK cont'd) ... The other point that I'm quite concerned about was just touched on briefly by the Honour able Member for Seven Oaks and that is guidance and counselling. I believe Manitoba is dread fully failing our students in counselling and guidance. The majority of our schools have an inadequate guidance and counselling program. A number of our large high schools in Winnipeg are manned with teachers shelling out services and advice as that of a full qualified counsellor.

A teacher playing the role of a professional counsellor could very possibly give advice that may prove to be wrong to the student and at times perhaps detrimental . Some of our so-called counsellors today I don't believe have taken any courses in this field and many of the high schools in rural Manitoba have no guidance program whatsoever. Something must be done to improve the situation. In United States I believe all counsellors must have a certificate and be trained in this field.

I feel that steps should be immediately taken to set up courses either at our own University or perhaps with the Manitoba Teachers College so that we could have more counsellors in Manitoba. I believe such courses would be beneficial to equip students much better to the type of courses that they should take, because I feel at times they are either work ing above their level or maybe below not knowing what courses they should be taking. · I feel a good guidance program would no doubt save money to the province in the long run and would as well save many dropouts in high school.

These are just a few of the points I wanted to mention at this time. I think that the teacher shortage is serious problem and I would say that I would like to see the Minister take some measures immediately so that we don't lose any more teachers to the other provinces. . ..•. ..... continued on next page • I

I March 10, 1!�66 82 1 MR. HUSS ELL PAULLEY (Ra disso n): Mr. Chairman , may I first of all sa.y to the Minister of Education how much we appreciated his introductory remarks the other night. We. appreciate too the ene rgies that the Honour able Minister is exhibiting in pursuing his arduous task as Minister; and I would like to pay a tribute to all of the members of the staff of the Department of Education .

We, I think, are being well served with our civil servants in the Department of Educatio n. · I sometimes wonde r whether they fee l that they are unde r somewhat of a handicap, as I'm sure that some of them must feel, in that they have to follow certain dire ctives o:f the government rather than being able to make contributions that they think indi vidually may enhance the forward look in educ ation more than they may be receiving .as a result of go,rernmental direction. So with that reservation, if indeed it is a rese rvation, Mr.

Chairman , I say to the civil servants in the Department of Education that they are serving their provimle well, -limited of course as I mentioned, by the directions of the government. I want to thank the Minister for making avai lable to us a synopsis of the highlights of the past year in the fie ld of education. As one reads through the list of the accomplishments of the last year, one can get some satisfaction that some of the neglected fie lds i.n educa tion over a num ber of years are now beginning to receive some attention. Just to illustra te one of those fields , Mr.

Chairman , I refer to the question of the General Course and the need of revision in the curricu lum as well.

You know I recall on a few occas ions now the Honou rable the Minister and myself have been at loggerheads over the General CouLrse . ·A s a matter of fac t, ·I wasn't mistaken, during my comments in reply to the Speech from the Throne, I thought my honourable friend was just about ready to le.ap over the barricade between the two of us and severe ly chastise me because of the fact that I did n't think · that he had yet awakened to the fact that the General Course is not being accepted; also awakened to the fact that students and pupils and teachers and parents are still not aware of the signifi"" cance or thEl contents of the General Course .

I note that in the highlights of last year, Item No. 32 is vindication of the stand that I have taken since the inception of the General Course , because the Minister adm its in Item No. 32 now that a joint committee of the Department of Educ ation and the Manitoba Teachers Society is producing a brochure on the General Course for the gui, dance of students and for the information of parents and prospective employers; and liaison is being maintaine d with various professi onal and semi-profe ssional bodies to ens ure a wider ·_ acceptance of graduate s of the General Course.

Well ][ say to my friend, thanks at long last, because I can recall on nume rous occasions whenin y fri·end, unl ess I interpreted his remarks incorrectly , told me that in general every one was aware of the signific ance of the General Course . If I recall correctly, on an occasion or two he td•ld me that the guidance offic ers in the schools and the principals had h ad all of this informati on. Well, I don't know. Possibly they did, but apparently a little more significance is going to be paid to my utte rances in the production of a brochure that is being compiled - or has now been compiled.

I wrutt to know from the Minister how many more professi onal or semi-professi onal bodies have been agreeable to change the requirements of students -o r members of some of these semi-prof ess ional or professi onal organizations - into the acceptance of graduate s of Grade 1� , because I have pointed out on a few occas ions in the past that there were a num]:l'er who wou ld not or had not accepted the General Course as a qualific ation for entrance into the profes sion. I think, Mr.

Cha1rman, you will recall one of the main ones that I had raised in the past was the teaching professi on, where their Act of the Legis lature stipulated complete Grade 12, acad emically I believe . I wonder if the Minister can tell us whether we are going to receive at this Sessi on of the Legis lature bills amending the stipula tions in some of the semi-professi onal or profes sional groups in order to allow for the entrance of pupils graduating in: the General Course .

It is mentioned here that, as I say, liaison is being maintaine d with various pro fessi onal aud semi -professional bodies to ensu re a wider acceptance , and I would like to hear from the Minister what he means by that and how much has been accomplishe d in this particu lar area since last we met. ASlo, Mr. Chairman, I'm very interested in the report that the Ministe r gives to us in certain oth«�r fie lds. For instan ce, in Item No. 19 he deals with the que stion of area de velop ment committees .

He mentions area developme nt committe es have been established to assist the department in planning the deve lopment and operation of our new vocational centres at .The Pa.S and at Brandon . In each case , the committe es are composed of ·lead ers in business, indu stry; labour and government in the areas to be served by the schools . Meetings of these committe es have been held and their co-operation and advice has been much appreciated.

822 March 10, 1966 (MR. PAULLEY, cont'd) .... !.want to thank the Honourable the Minister of Education for sending me during the recess a copy of a brochure dealing with the estab lishment of the school at Brandon. I found it most informative. But I would like to know in connection with The Pas , wh� are t he members of the committee there and what is being done insofar as the course s are conc.erned, becau$e, Mr. Chairman, another document the Minister provided us with the other day was a brochure entitled "Guidance Services Newsletter" by Mr. J. Banman, Acting Supervisor of Guidance, Department of Education.

One of the items that I was interested in, Mr. Chairman, was the courses to.be offered at The Pas . The other day an announcement was made of the development of the integrated forestry industries in the area around The Pas and it was indicated at that particular .time that this was a venture that had been on the books for some considerable period of .time and that investigations had been going on. The government were planning for· this installation., or estab lishmentin the north. Mr.

Chairman, when I look at the Depa rtme nt of Education's plans for a technical or vocational centre at The Pas, there apparentl y seems to be no plans of any consequence for the tea ching to students of requisites in the forestry industry, because if you look on Page .9 of this Guidance Service Newsletter you find that the principal of the school informs u:;; that it will offer one technology course - a two- year course in mining to include crushing, grinding, fire assaying, chemical assaying, milling, and will require a complete Grade 11 for entrance to that course. This is fine. This is fine anQ.

I'm sure that . it will be appreciated by the mining industry and by people who are going into the fieldof mining. Then if you turn to Page 10 in the same report you will note mention is made by the principal . that short courses will be operate d from time to time for the forest ry and fishing iJ1dustries. My point, Mr.

Chairman, is the other day the Honourable the Minister o{ Industry and Commerce, while making the announcement of the development in The Pas, mentioned to us of the need for the training of personne 1 for the industry - even, as I was reading last evening, his remarks to the offer from. the people in Switzerland to provide personnel.for the teaching of the students . Mr. Chairman, this government has told .us that they.have been looking for ward in the field of education. They told us that they were looking forward in the field of the development of our forestry. We were building a vocational school at The Pas.

Surely the Minister of Industry and CoJI!.Inerce and the Minister of Education on this occas ion couldn't have be.en talking to each other very well.

If what the Minister of Industry and Commerce told us the other day was c.orrect, that this has been in the books for a long period of time - and I did indicate on one occas ion that it had been because I recall during the election of 1953 about a pulp mill for The Pas -b ut if as my honourable friend the Minister of Industry and Commerce has st!U;ed, that this has been in the books for a long time, surely the Departm ent of Education , in its plan for the establ ishment of a vocational training school at The Pas, would have at least had two technological courses to be offered, one in mining as they. have announced; the other one in forestry.

As a matte r of fact, Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that here in the Province of Manitoba no one can take a real course in forestry training because there isn't the provision for it at the. university and it doesn't appear to me in the report of the !!apartment that there is going to be .in any other technical or vocational plan in the Department of Education. Having said that, Mr.

Chairman, I feel sure however that now that this has been drawn to the atte ntion of the Minister of Education by a member in opposition, that he will talk to the Minister of Industry and Commerce and say to him: Well, Gurney, it looks as though you're going to have to start endeavouring to educate some of the people, particularly up in the north, insofar as forestry is concerned so that I can bail you out if I need to by the provision of properly trained sta ff. The unfortunate part about it though, Mr.

Chairman, the unfortunate part about it however is that the school is being constructed at The Pas now, and !b e lieve the plan is that it may be opened this fall. The courses will take a while to produce; it will take the students a little while to absorb the necessa ry knowledge. In the meantime, the plant of the Minister of Industry and Commerce is going to be built and the trained personnel will not be there. So I s;t y to .my honourable friend- my honourable friend shakes his head - maybe I should say they will be there if we import them from outside the boundaries of Manitoba.

So I say; I trust that if the elect ion· that we 're going to have soon inadvertently does r,esult in the return of the present government, which I doubt, . but if it does, I do hope :- I do hope that the· people.of Manitoba will be served a little bit better, with a closer amount of co-operation between the various ministries I

March 10, 1966 823 (MR. PAULLEY, cont'd) ...• of government than has been at least as I'm illust rating here just now. Mr. Chairman, "my honourable friend the Minister of Industry and Commerl[)e says "which I am imagining." The Honourable Minister of Welfare says "hear, hear. " What a bright pair -- (Interjection) -- I' m glad the Minister of Welfare is smiling when he says that, Mr.

Chairman, because I fee:l pretty sure that he being one of those on the inner circles, doesn't like the one who lives in the City of Transcona telling the Minister of Industry and Commerce and telling the Minister of Education on behalf of the people of The Pas, which is represented by the Minister of Welfare, '�he deficiencies in the planning of his government, and I trust and hope that the people of Th<9 Pas will take due cognizance of the fact that sometimes it takes a long time to wake up their representative and his associates in the Cabinet. Then again along·this same theme, Mr.

Chairman, in Item No. �2 of the highlights of the past, we say here that technical and training advisory committees are being set up to assist the de,partment to prepare first cl ass programs for these institutions, said institutions being the voc�ational training institutions. Just being set up? Pl anning? Popp ycock! I'm interested, as I mentioned a moment ago, Mr. Chairman, in the question of curri culum.

I know that the Minister has had a committee operating for some time in the important field of curriculum, and it is interes ting to note that the Curriculum Branch is preparing a booklet intended to provide Grade 9 students with detailed information on the wide range of course offerings now available in the secondary schools . Here again, the Honourable the Minister of Educ ation is reinforcing the stand that I have taken in the past, of the lack of infor mation to students as to what is available to them in the field of education. Item No. 39 in the highlights of last year deals with the School for the Deaf.

It states, "A dramatic' forward move in the provision of facilitie s and training for deaf chHdren came to a head in the opening of the Manitoba School for the Deaf with an enrollment of 134 pupils and teaching staff of 20. " I cannot help, Mr. Chairman, to make a comment on this partic ular venture by the Minister's department. I feel that I must do, out of respect for my former colleague the former Member for Inkster, Mr. Gray, who fought for years to have the repa triation of the School for the Deaf - residential school here in Manitoba. As a matter of fact, Mr.

Chairman, I wrote a letter to the Minister asking him if he would give consideration to the naming of the school the "Morris Gray School. " I thought this would be a fitting recognition at that time to the work that my former colleague had done in this fie ld. The Minister in his wisdom did not accept my plan. Of course at that parti cular time Mr. Gray was still with us; he was still a member of the Legis lature; and the school was not named after him.

I do think in all fairness to the Honourable the Minister, that if the present situation had prevailed at that time, possibly more consideration may have been given to the naming of the school in honour of my colleague. A littl e late r on in the dealing of the estimates, Mr.

Chairman, of the department, I will be asking a number of questions on speci fic items, and I want to prepare the Honourable the Minister for one now because I doubt very much whether we will be into that area within the next 10 or ll5 minutes, but I would ask him to give some thought now to being able to inform the committee as to what provisions insofar as curriculum and machinery is going to be provided for the commercial high school which is announced under the vocational education program for the ensuing year - the commerci!ll high school for Winnipeg.

I want to know, to be a little more spe cific, what are the plans in the curricula for teaching the new technologies in the commercial fie ld. I notEl that the Minister is concerned, more concerned now than he ap peared to have been some time ago, about the necessity for increasing efforts in the field of teacher recruitment. I think some of the plans at least that he has outlined here may be of some va lue; more will be said on thaJ� point a little bit later.

Ther·e is one other field that I want to touch on, Mr. 'Chairman, and that deals with the question of Item No. 8 on Page 12 dealing with the Inter lake area, and here the Minister deals with a con:t!erence held at Fisher Branch with about 100 leaders in ARDA, and it states that education s:hould have the highest priority in the area and that the government should plan and direct the limprovement of the educational system by boldly setting up adequate consolidations and by offering assis tance to make a better system possible.

I would like, if my honourable friend the Minister is able to expand on what was really meant by that ph rase "boldly setting up adequate consolidations." We know of Bill 39 and its deficiencies; we know that as far as we are concerned in my particular group, particularl y our pre decessors the CCF, we were

824 March 10, 1966 (MR . PAULLEY, cont'd) ...• always advocating boldly attempting to sell the larger school areas in Manitoba - and of course this goes back over quite a few administrations - and I just want to hear from the Minister how boldly - how boldly his setting up exercises will be in this field as indicated by this brochure. Now one other area mentioned in the part of the synopsis for the future is Item No .. 19, and I'm sure this deal with programs for mentally retarded, and it's a field that I think that the committee should give a considerable amount of consideration to as it's very vital.

I want to make one comment to the Minister, to prepare him now in this respect, because the respon sibility for education of the mentally retarded contained in Item 19, as I mentioned, states it will include both the educable and trainable groups; will be on a permissive basis in 1966 - 67 and be mandatory after June, 1967 -t hat's Item No. ::1 - and Item No. 3 states that it will be placed in the hands of the division boards.

Now I want the Minister, if he wil� to expand on this, because I can visualize a possibility, if the responsibility for the education of the mentally retarded is to be placed in the hands of the division boards, I can foresee the possibility, unless the Minister gives us a clear delineation of What he means in this respect, that in those school divisions in which there are located homes for the mentally retarted or hospitals - such as in my constituency of Radisson, St.

Amant; and as in the constituency of Portage la Prairie, the home for the retardates at Portage la Prairie -i f the responsibility there for the educable or trainable is placed in the responsi bility of the board, I can see the possibility of the financial cost being an additional burden on those respective school divisions. So I would the Minister to just give the clarification, if need be, insofar as the appropriations of costs will be concerned. I. do note that in the same program it says that the Department of Education will take over the teaching staff of the training school at Portage and St.

Amant, but there may be others that aren't this way and which might entail added responsibility on local school divisions, and the Minister I am sure will be able to put me straight on that. Now, Mr. Chairman, there are many other aspects of education that I haven't touched on and I'm sure will be during the consideration of the Minister's as timates.

I mentioned that When we deal with the question of the education of the mental retardate - haven't had a full opportunity as yet of re ading the study of the education of the handicapped children in Manitoba Which the Minister laid before us the other day - it requires a lot of study. I do recall three or four years ago we did, from this group, make a request that surveys be made in the Province of Manitoba as to the number of children Who may be handicapped for Whom provision is not made at the present time at schools .

If I recall correctly - maybe it was prior to the present Minister's occupancy of the Department of Education - we raised the question of the lack of facilities in rural areas for the training of handicapped children because there might be only one or two and because the divisions of responsibility were still with the primary school, and unless it was done in a larger school area, on a larger school area basis, the cost would be too great. Now as I sa y, Mr. Chairman, I haven't had an opportunity of thoroughly diagnosing this study of the handicapped children and the answer to my question may be in there.

But I do say to the Minister, you have a tremendous job ahead of you. We're just catching up on education. I agree that education ranks high in the priorities of Manitoba. I am not quite convinced that it is the highest priority because I still have sort of an affection for the priority insofar as health is concerned . . I think they are co-rela� d; l think they are equal as far as that

part is concerned. However, notwithstanding what Lt hink about it, Mr. ChaiTman, I do say that education has .high prlority'in Maniooba and I w.ish the Minister luck in the remaitiing days of his being the Minister of Education. Possibly the First Minister can tell us when the change of gov'ernment·will take place, or in other wo rds, when are we going to have ·our provincial election so we can have a reai progressive force on that side of the House, namely representatives of my party. MR. RUBLIN: Mr.

Chairman, I do not rise to answer the question posed by my honour able friend because time will take care of that, but I wou ld ask the permission of the committee to interrupt the regular course of our business so �hat I may present now the latest information on flood forecasting, because I have a very serious review here received from the committee and I want it to be in the possession of the House and the general public at the earliest date. So I'll proceed if I may.

The Flood Foreoasting Committee met on March 10, 1966 to study and report on flood prospects in the light of the intense snowstorm Which occurred over the Red River basin last week. The committee reports that a flood threat to the Greater Winnipeg area and to the Red

March ID, 19156 825 (MR. ROBLll'l', cont'd} .... Ri ver Valley south of Winnipeg now pre vails . Weather conditions during the ne:rt three to four weeks hold the key to flooding on the Red Ri ver. If ideal conditions pre vail, with little or no pre cipitation together with favourable melting conditions, a peak stage at Winnipeg O•f about 28 feet city datum is indicated. If conditions are not favourable, the peak could be substantially higher. And may I interrupt mysel f to remind members that the peak in 1950 was 30. •6 feet, I believe, so it indicates the nature of the forecast for Winnipeg.

I continue with the state:ment. As stated in the earlier pre ss release of February 23, a large portion of the major dikes in the Greater Winnipeg area are constructed to a top el evation which corresponds to a stage of 26 .5 feet c:ity datum. The remainder of the major dikes are some four feet higher. Fl ood stages at Emerson are expected to exceed first flood stage of 783 feet by about 7 feet, giving a stage of 790 feet, which was one foot below the 1950 peak. At Morris, the peak is likely to be about 780 feet, which is some 10 feet above first flood stage in that vicinity.

The peak recorded at Morris in 1950 was about two feet higher. The committee considers the' situation on the Ass iniboine Ri ver to have been unchanged by the recent; snowstorm due to the comparatively small amount of snow which fe l.l on this basin. The eommittee therefore reiterates its previous conclusion that spring pe:aks on the Assi niboine Hiver will be confined within the banks along most of its course. There is however a possibility of flooding caused by ice jams between Portage la Prairie and Winnipeg.

The committee will meet again on March 24 following completion of further snow surveys to be undertaken by the Water Control and Conservational Branch. That is the statement made by the Flood Forecasting Committee. I would like to announce that the meeting which I spoke of yesterday between the govern ment and those who are concerned with flood-fighting has been called for the afternoon of Tuesday neXI� and invitations are going out to all concerned so that we may consider the problem that we face. MR. GEORGE JOHNSON, (Gimli} : Mr. Chairman, I app reciate the remarks to date of the honourable members opposite.

Possibly I could deal with these in reverse order of their prese ntation in some of the highlights, and if I miss a particular point I'd be happy to try and answer it. lReall y in the field of education today, as one chap remarked to me the other day, it's getting to be a point to train pers onnel in almost every professi on and teaching and what have you, that we' ve got too many kids and not enough adults to train or to run the kids and so on.

In dealing with the honourable member, the Leader of the NDP I know of his concern for the General Course and I think that one has to, I think.the points he makes are well taken. I have been quite concerned in the past year about the, as has the depart ment, concerning the information concerning this course but I have taken every opportunity in talking with teachers in rural areas, espec ially where the course has received most favour, in asking individual teachers who are teaching the course, what they think of it, etcetera.

The kids like it, the teachers li�e teaching it and many of them say to me - it's like anything el se that's new, it takes time to win its spurs as it were. We had some information come to us this year that certain students were concerned. We approached the head of banks and industry in the city who told us they were taking general course stud1mts and they didn't think many of the comments were jus tified.

We have taken opportunitefl to have groups of students in Grade 12 come in to our MIT for example and see the various opportunities that are open through that source and as I indicated -- for instance I have a letter here from a secretary of a high school where we had the boys in, he said "It's our sincerest wish that we will be able to maintain the st andards and reputation that the depart ment has promoted. We have found the course educational and excell ent in its development of imagination and initiative which we will take with us during the lifetime of emp loyment.

" With the General Course let's realize that it was not - as soon as 196 0 when the Royal Commission recommended an alternative high school course, that work was begun immediately and the course is now as you know full y designed and impl emented. It was never meant to be primarily a university entrance course but it was the concern of the House that there be as much articu lation betwe•en -- that students would be able to move back and forth at some stage.

I think we could spend an awful lot of time talking about the nuts and bolts of the course but generally I'm enthusiastic about this course and as I indicated the other evening, we have been talking to the University about it, The Articulation Committee and the Department have been talkin�� with the University, have now added professi onal teachers from our high school

826 March 10, 1966 (MH. JUHNSUN, cont'd) .. •• system to their co=tttee in pursuing this with the university and it is being examined very closely and I think the suggestions they have made are excellent. I like the idea of more and more integration of these courses, as I pointed ·out, I think this is the breakthrough to having it accepted more generally.

It's being used more and more and I think we will see -- and I would share this with the Co=ittee that as you know, or as you may know, very soon there will be a Founding Convention of the University and Colleges - University Entrance Co=ittee having a Founding Convention soon. All provinces are represe'nted with the universities on this co=ittee that will be setting a standard exam. along the lines of the American College Entrance exam.. Children or boys and girls intending to proceed to university will probably write the exams about April in any one year; possibly next year will see the first of this.

This gives universities an opportunity to determine their etirollments earlier and so on. If we get this integration of the General and University Entrance Course that I'm so hopeful of, I think we have again a multi-course pat tern. There are really only two groups who have through their own - set their standards of admission - have been advertising in the schools that they want University Entrance students, for instance Nursing and Lab and X-ray Technology. Lab Technology is taking the General Course students now.

X�ra y Technology -we have been in constant touch with them -- had meetings most recently and they are reconsidering the matter at this time. We have gone into this very thoroughly with them and I am very hopeful that they will - espe cially with this changing attitude of this integration - articulation course, I think there they see the value in the General Course. The nursing professi on. I have been in constant touch with them and they have reviewed the General Course and are still reviewing it with our peopl e at this moment. They have generally accepted the General Course in the scie_nces.

They are examining now the English and Social Studies which they feel at the moment they would prefer the university entrance people . They tell me that 93% of their students that are entered into the schools of nursing they have been able to get university entrance girls to date and so on. As you know the Minister of Health has a co=ittee on the supp ly of nurses sitting now in connection with that. The Department is represented on that Co=ittee. We are making further representations as to some ideas that we have in this area.

Iti fairness to the nursing professi on, I think they are in a sta te of flux across Canada with respect to the re-organization of their courses. As you know there is the B. Se. Course in nursing now at the University. I think the Whole report estimated that 30% of nurses in the future would come from university courses or be graduates at the administrative leve l and our belief is that the general course reco=ends itself to the diploma course in nursing and they are examining a new philos ophy entirely in this area. I don't think we are far off from some meeting of the minds in this regard.

The planning of the General Course I think was extensive. I think it's an excell ent cours� and I think it's going to win its spurs, but I say we also have to get acceptance of this course by teaching personnel, by the teachers themse lves within the system. When you are introducing courses like this and they are not mandatory, there's reluctance sometimes to switch froni the traditional role as we have known it in this province and I think again the secret lies in the accepta nce by the University of General Course students in this way.

The honourable meniber mentioned - in manpower development I can say this to the co=ittee that the departme nt is gearing, and has been for the past year, two years now, but in the past year we have reall y reached the point that we will put on any course , any time, any place , for anybody if we get enough candidates and design it - in the field of manpower development. Our area development committees I should explain - in connection with each of these schools I have literally about 30 pages here of advisory co=ittees.

For exam.ple we have the Provincial Advisory Council in Vocational Ed ucation consisting of leaders in business and industry, labor and so on, We have Regional Development Co=ittees at The Pas and Brandon. I have a list of The Pas Co=ittee here. I would be happy to make a list and pass it to the honourable meniber. Iti addition to the advisory co=ittees in each trade, and any proposed new trade, we have gone to the people who are in the field in government arid , business and Labour and formed co=ittees and designed courses.

The way we tackled it, for examp le at The Pas, was to invite to an initial meeting as many people , representatives of the industries in the . north as we could think of. We had something like 40 people to a meeting. We had many more than that at the Brandon meeting. We told them the purpose of such a meeting was to form a development co=ittee made up of the business peopl e and the

March 10, 1B66 82 7 (MR. JOHNSON, cont'd) ••.• local people in the area to advise us as to the kinds of wor k opportunities and so on. It was agreed by both the larger groups that it would be far better to have these d<evelopment committe es of about 20 in number so that they are workable, not too big a commUte e, and I must sa y in connection with The Pas development we more or less said to the people, the mining experts at Thompson and Hudson's Ba y Mining and Sme lting - what do we need?

What is a practical mining technologist? our people examined the Mining Technology Course in Ontario closel y and I can say to you that it's the local experts and the people in this fie ld that have actuall y designed this course that's going into The Pa s. It has been very stimu lating in thaJ; regard.

With respect to the proposed development in pulp we have of course been very conscious of this and I think I could report to the Committee that the first stage in this pulp operation will be debrurking and pulp cutting and we have short courses planned for it to take place not only at The :Pas but at isolated centres throughout the North . This is the first stage of more or less of a trade training or on-the-job training. The second stage of course in this is lumber and the third stage is the pulpmi ll which is due in '71.

There is one miniature pulpmi ll in Canada for training of pulp workers in Quebec which our people have visited within the depart ment and we: are planning in that area. We have lots of land at our Technical School at The Pas in ordeJr to add pos sibl y such an operation to train the local people for the kind of industry that will be conducted in that way. In the Jn.terlake area I would sa y that in connection with the ARDA matte r, I think we will have lots of opportunity to debate this , not only in the estimate s as we come to these items but when the le�rf.slat ion is brought down.

It is being proposed that as a pilot project in the Jn.terlake area, as a result of our studi es, that we sit in a Boundarie s Commission which would plan adequate elE,me ntary consolidations based on geography, growth - get as big a school as they can, hopefully a minimum of 8 rooms for elementary schoo ls. Now with geogr aphy I am just postu lating ·- it ma y be that in one corner the mo st you can create would be a five-room school but the hope would be an eight.

The commission would then report on where these consoli dations should be, within each division a master plan of elementary consolidation - and report to this, and that this would be broug ht in without any referendum . That this would just be im posed. You just come in and say this is where the schoo ls are going to be, this is the size they are going to be and work this in with the divis ions . The legis lation is still being drafted, it is bold, but this is from our conferences and dealings with the local people, who were the educational committe e there. They have recommended this .

We also think that in connection with the pilot project in the Jnterlake, in manpower mo bility as planned in concert with agriculture and the Manpower Agency in ottawa under Mr. Marchand, that we would sa y that it is important to have a com pletely comprehensive program from elementary education rig ht up to technical vocational training, adult education centre in the Inter lake, to just bring in a bill that will allow us to set in this comm issi on to set up a pl anned order within those three divisions and just see how we make out.

Also, we have in these estimate s the sum of cl ose to $400, 000, which we have developed a formula to bring to the very have-not one room school districts that are in that area, suffi cient money to bring up the educational costs on the local level on a per pu pil-- I'll have to give you the formula, I haven't got it in front of me but it's a formu la to make it attractive to the local people to in fact bring about this consoli dation. It's sort of an equalization formula based on the provincial average in those areas that have effected consoli dation.

I think one of the figures was around $210, 000 per pupil, the asses sment or the figure in areas where consol ida tion had be,an effected easily, and in some of these areas it's $50 ,0 00 per pupi l, and if you bring that up on a sli ding sc ale, depending on the wealth of the area, I think we ·can make it attr active t.o the local people . But if we include this pilot project from elementary up within the designated area -- I have spoken with the officials in Ottawa about this and to what extent they will participate in the elementary level I don't know.

The secondary level I have hopes, but I would like to proceed with this plan and bring the total thing before the federal people and say, let's try this total compre hensive reorganization and go after it. In the retarded- there's going to be a shakedown period in abso rbing the trainable and educable r��tarded under the division . We're going to have to, in matte rs of transportation and so on within the Metro area, have inter-divisional discuss ions no doubt as· to the wishes of the division in bringing this about. It was felt that it should not be mandatory for a year.

Again, we can dist�uss this at furt her length when the details of the legis lation are before us and I hope that won't be too long. It 's not going to be an easy task, as the Leader of the NDP said. We

828 March 10, 1966 (MR. JOHNSON, cont'd) .... feel it should be under divisional boards and we are now gearing our legis lation and aiming hopefull y for single district divisions , and it would seem opportune to place them under divisions rather than districts as was suggested in the Christianson report.

I think within institutions the plan is the Department of Educ ation would be directly res ponsible, not the division - that is in government institutions -b ut divisions, for example in the first year or two until divisions are looking at their over-all space requirements, needs and so on, they may well decide to continue using the present Kinsmen School during the period; they may decide to centralize within the Metro area in one centre. These are details that we're going to have to hammer out with the individual divisional boards.

I should point out that many of the courses planned for the new Institute of Applied Arts are the results of inquiries and surveys into the need for trained personne l in various occupa tions for which there has heretofore not been an oppor tunity for training - I'm thinking of computer data proce ssing and this sort of thing - and in planning our commercial high school I think one of the great advantages of centralizing , according to the committee that studied this, was the very high cost of this kind of new equipment to train our commercial people , and it would be very wise to centralize this in one school in Winnipeg for the Winnipeg area rather than individual divisional boards going into this. 111e way it is now, it is spread out quite a bit and it's a pretty expens ive proposition.

I can give further details on that later. While I'm on my feet, there's one matter l would like to ..::ie�T and one I do not under es timaw for one moment, and that's the matter of teacher suppl y . Manitoba is not alone , I can assure you. It's a Canada-wide problem and while not wishing - it's been brought up three or four time s at this Sessi on alread!' - the Manitoba Teachers Society sent out a question naire to newly graduated teacherE earl y in July of this year. We were aware of this

article and at that time I asked the department to give me a report on it and to do some research into the matter as to what they thought of the situation. May I say I'd like to compliment the Manitoba Teachers Society for its enterprise in conducting their study and to the teachers throughout the province who responded to Lhe questionnaires. Now we' carried out a survey in the fall of 1965 and after the teachers were in their cl assrooms, not in July when some of the new graduates espec ially were in a state of flux. It was felt when they were back in the cl assroom was the time to do it.

Our research resul ted in - we wrote, we phoned, we phoned re latives, we did everything humanly possib le to get ahold of these peopl e as to just where they had gone , and this is as good a survey as I think we have ever done or has ever been done in Canada bec ause this was a personal survey of our teaching force . It was established by way of actual count that 7, 534 teachers from the previous year had continued and that 1, 474 had not returned to the cl assrooms .

It then became a matter of following the 1, 474 and this was done by sending out a further ques tionnaire followed up where neces sary again by the school inspec tor or through the school principal and the result was that 98. 8 percent of the practising teachers were traced, all but a total of 102 of the total number. We got about almost 99 percent report. And the Premier has dealt with this at one point.

I should mention to the House that the teaching force in the province is 9, 009 teachers, then there's about 60 0 in private schoo ls , schools of Indian Affairs and so on, but of the 1, 474, 218 - the total teaching outside Manitoba was 203 and if you project that to 100 percent from 99 it's 218, or 2.4 percent; returned to University - 2::!0, or our projected total would be 236 or ::!.62 percent; returned home - 30::! or 3.6 percent; retired with 37 years service as an average - 109, projected to 117 or 1. 3 percent of the force; private schools - 27, or . 32 percent; Indian Affairs - 19 to 20, 23 percent; other occupa tions - 67 , projected to n or • 8 percent; other reasons not specified - 198, projected to ::!13 or 2. 3 percent; unqualified, holding no certificate - 227 , projected total 244 or 2. 71 percent of our teaching force ; permit teachers weren't traced was 10�; which makes a total of your teaching force of 9, 009 or 16 .3 6 percent of your teachers represented in these 1, 474 .

Now when you follow this further, we found that teachers recruited from other provinces and countries and ju risdictions were 172, and teachers with Manitoba certificates who returned to teaching, this mobile young force was �17 , so the net loss of teachers both qualified and unqualifie d was 885 teachers or 9. 8 percent of your 9, 009.

Now in the past year, I thought I would just mention to the Committee that in all your teacher training institutions , excluding technical vocational teachers of which there were about 40 or 50 last year, there were 996 academic teachers graduated in both the Faculty and Brandon College, and if you take 996 and subtract 885 you get about a surplus of 111 roughly, just to give you an indication, but about 250 new cl assrooms opened so you're short again.

March 10, 1966 829 (MR. JOHNSON, cont'd\ .... Also, I should polnt out for the benefit of the commit tee that in the last four to five years all the faciUUes that will be in operation this fall have been created over the past four or five years. The Faculty of Education Building for :lO O capacity or more - :lOO I believe; the 800 student capwaity addition, wher e the lA stud ents are training at the university now; and it was felt very advisable to proceed alm ost imme diately last summer with this Br andon Coll ege facility for a. total of 300 teacher training spa ces.

So we will have this fall 1, 300 teacher training spaces, and when you add your summ er course people, lll week summe r course that graduates wl.ll take - or third or fourth year students - you could train another 100 or more in summer schoo l, so 1, 400 teachers should be our target at the minimum this year. These figur es have been brought to the attention of our newly established Teacher Education Committe e who are looking at the speed and the method by which we can go into a two year program of teacher training, and one can see the problem that is befo:ce us and I don't minimize it.

To go the two yE�ars we've got to pick up some extra people along the way. The nEted for permits was necessa ry of course this year. Letters of authority - while there's quitE: a few letters cif author ity, I point out that many of these people are people with experience in teaching. Some of you know of some of these teachers who have taught for many many years who are still on letters of auth ority. Many of the se people have degrees of course but still there's a tremendous challenge before us.

The hope this year, in deciding to bring about the reraruitment program that's before you, is to encourage more young people to go into the teaching professi on wherever we poss ibl y can and to aid them with bursaries in addition to picking up their fees. We hope our teacher recruitment officer is now at work and exploring different ideas. You might have noted in Ontario, the Minister there is starting an interneship program where they have a :graduate come in and take a few weeks course in the spring, a few months in the school and then a summer course and then he is put out into the field again.

I think different provinces are doing almost anything to get qualif ied people. I might report to the House, we made an inquiry to the London Time s about rates of their advertising for teachers in that country . They took our letter for face value and put the ad in the paper and we had 30 replies from people who sou nded fairly well qualified. The experience In the past in recru itment from overseas has not been that dramatic in Manitoba's history from what I undersand in the departm ent.

But the teacher recruitment officer is doing his best in working with the trus tees and teachers to bring about many personal visits to schools and to attract as many people as we can to fill all these available spaces this fall. I think we are going to have to see how that commi ttee makes out; how successful they will be; and I think we will treat it as a mat ter of ur gency, to watch it very closel y and do whatever we can to bring more and more in. I might point out that the number of qualified teachers is steadily increasing. There• is one other factor I think we should rem ember.

We have about the lowest in Canada, about the lowest numbe r of pupils per teacher. Manitoba's latest figure is 1966 - 23.9 pu pils per teacher. When you divide 23.9 into 218, 000 childr en, you get 9, 080; when you divide 2:3 into 218, you get 9, 480. You can see that a drop in pupil ratio , 500 teachers right there, with one pupil less per classr oom, you need another 50 0 teachers. As a matter of fact, if V\re had as many children per cl assroom as Br itish Colum bia in 1964, we would have needed only 8, 135 teachers instead of 8, 86 0 which we used in this province.

I just want to indicate to 1;he committee what a tremendous difference one point in the per pu pil ratio means in teacher EIUpply • .It's just fantastic. I must say that much of the debate that has been before us - and I think we all appreciate it - is that we're criticized on the one hand for going too fast and putting pressures on kids , and on the <lther hand we're told we're back in the Middle Ages; and one wonders where the happy medium is.

In guidance, I think we have made a decis ion as a matter of policy, from the review of the streaming recomme ndations that come forward from the educators , that the most effective thing· was :!1;oing to be guidance, and in these estimate s we have scoured for guidance people across this country now for two years. Mr. Ba nmam who is reported as the Assis tant Supervisor has now been appointed Supervisor and we're searching for two more ass istants _ this year. We 're hopeful to get someone again soon but they're at a premium.

Secondly, we have arranged with the university for summe r guidance courses and a compl ete year's training in guidance at the university, and there is $60, 000 .in these estimate s

830 March 10, 1966 (MR. JOHNSON, cont'd) •... to offe r bursaries to graduate teachers to come and take that guidance program. We feel very definite ly that we 're going to have to do our best in a flat out campaign to staff our schoo ls. We're willing to listen to any suggestions or ideas; we' re at full throttle, doing whatever we can, and I think we ha� to give the bursaries especially in the guidance fie ld as a priority now to get people into that fie ld.

Insofar as small high schools are concerned and the number of schools mentioned by the Honourable Member from Emerson yesterday, I must say that I don't want to .go back in history , I don 't think any thing much is gaine d now in this day and age of educational advance to go back and say, "L o':lk what it was when you were a member of the government ," but I thought the committee wo uld be intere sted to note some of the figures on school buildings which are rather revealing.

Our educational system isn't all that bad but I would agree that, as stated in the white paper, we mustn't be complacent for a moment and we mustn't let smaller schools be developed if it is at all possibl e to avoid it. The Member from Ethelbert said we have a tremendous job in bringing about that equality throughout the province which must be done , and I think the idea of the regional technical vocational high schools is a major step in that advan ce, the development of single district divisions which will be a further equaliza tion in educa tional costs - an opport unity over a wider area.

I think we have to get into single district divisions to allow a divisional . board to properly pl an and make use of existing space and it's going to take some ingenuity it's true. But I don't think anyone could have an ticipated some of the matters that have come up here.

I wou ld just like to say that the foundation of any adequate educational system lie s in the academic side of its public schools, and I think we must agree that in the past six years this was a very extensive overhau l of our public school system, with the decrease in the numbe r of one -room schools to a fant astically low figure compare d with just a couple of years ago . I am just trying to put my finge r on the numbers here but I've lost them again. There were something like 149 one-room schools six years ago in the province .

There is something like -I just haven't got the figure here now - but it's very small. I also think we must remember that a virtual revo lution took place in that there has been crea ted in the past six years over $80 million in school buildings at the el eme ntary and seco ndary le vel. The 1958 annual report shows the total value of all the schools accumulate d since the beginning of time in this province at 78 million --(Inte rjectio n)-- How much was what? MR, M. N. HRYHORC ZUK, Q. C. (Ethelbert Pla in s): .•...• going to get the value for the money spent? MR. JOHNSON: We ll, your retention rate is away up.

Instead of 22, 000 boys and girls in the high school system, you've got 58, 000. That's a tremendous incre ase in the number of boys and girls coming through your school system. It's revo lutionary . Let's face it. - (Inte rjection) -- But I don't reall y think it does an awful lot of good for me to talk too much. I have found in the past that I don 't cut too much mustard, but I just want to assure the honour able membe rs that we are most concerned about teacher training and guidance . We are looking at it, I ho pe , real istically.

I think the department are exc ited, as we are in the government, about the possibilities in the program before you now. I would assure the Leader of the NDP that I think the General Course needs all the support ev ery one of us here can give it - and these different courses - and we have got to open more and more doors for the boys and girls as we go along. I would point out to the honourable member that there is distributed in the program of studies, a complete brochure on the General Course . If he would like a copy of it, I'll ..•.. MR. P AULLEY: I certainly wou ld. MR.

JOHNSON: This was published last year, MR. PAULLEY: Last year? And yet you say in your report that it's coming next year. MR. JOHNSON: I beg your pardon ? MR. P AULLEY: You say that was published last year and yet in your .••. MR. JOHNSON: Oh, this is a teacher guide . This is the program of studies. What we 're talking about there is a brochure that outlines that there are 40 trades and 12 or 13 technologie s that these boys can go into , or they can go into general business. MR.

P AULLEY : In other words, you are starting a salesmanship job now to the students and the parents that we had been advocating two years ago . MR. JOHNSON: And enhanced.

March 10 , 1966 83 1 MR . PAULLEY: Oh, necessarily. I want to assure my honour abl e friend , Mr. Chairman, that when I make remarks in conne ction with the General Course itself, I am not trying to decry the course Use lf, but reall y my ob jective in speaking on the General Course in this Assembly is to endeavow� to make s� that it is accepted by all segments of the community and that every bod y knows exactly where it will lead to .

This has been my main criticism since it was inaugurate d, not -- the Mini ster I think at one stage indic ated that it may be that I was trying to pooh-pooh the General Course and knock it down. Certainly that hasn't been my suggestion at all, but r.ather that it be improve d, or as he just said "enhance d, " and it's beginning to pay a little dividend now. MR . J"OHNSON: .•••. honour abl e member read what he said about the General Course in Hansard? MR. PAULLEY: Yes, surely. MR . GOR DON E. JOHNSTON (Portage la Prairie): Could

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	27-5-35
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	27th 5th hansardpdf 35.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	6fbb8c83033240bf4b1d8f7df514a86534a56053

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